


Amphitryon

by procellous



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF
Genre: Gen, Martha and Frances get brought up once and then ignored so that's historically accurate, Mistaken Identity, despite this taking place on a battlefield there's no gore, heavily implied Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens, referenced John Laurens/Martha Manning, the shift from british english to american english is intentional
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7342780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procellous/pseuds/procellous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Colonel John Laurens, of His Majesty the King’s Royal Army, was having a good day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amphitryon

June 28, 1778  
Monmouth, New Jersey

—⚔—

Colonel John Laurens, of His Majesty the King’s Royal Army, was having a good day. The battle was all but won; despite the blistering heat, the men were ready to march further north to New York after they met (and soundly trounced) the Continentals here.

Major André assured them an easy victory, claiming that General Lee would call an early retreat. Nearly all the leaders of the Continentals were gathered there. General Washington, the Marquis de la Fayette, General Lee…all would be fighting there, and all would be easy targets for any man with a steady eye and a sure arm.

Laurens disliked using spies as a matter of principle: he found them dishonourable and traitorous. If they could betray the confidence of one faction, what would stop them from betraying King and Country? Still, André was a good sort, and had yet to betray them. Besides, if Laurens had one flaw in his judgement, it was that he favoured a handsome face; and André had quite the handsome face.

Laurens turned his horse in a tight circle, surveying his troops. They stood at attention, muskets ready and bayonets sharp. The Union Jack flew proudly overhead. All was ready.

“Laurens, my dear boy!” Cornwallis exclaimed, (the man seldom spoke but exclaimed with the vigour of a man twenty years his junior,) sweat beading his brow, “What a heat! But then, you must be used to it! A Carolinian summer must be twice as hot, eh? How do you manage?”

“We stay inside, generally.” It was true: the house was kept cool with high arching entryways and windows flung open to catch a breeze—all the while the slaves toiled in the fields, unprotected from the sun’s rays and the suffocating humidity.

Cornwallis gave a great, booming laugh. “But of course! Now, if only these rebels could give that a try, we could be at home with our wives and children ourselves, instead of out in this heat!”

The thought of Martha and Frances, back in England, caused the usual surge of pity. Had he but been more careful—no, it was too late for that.

“Buck up, Laurens, you’ll see them again soon enough! And your Martha will be glad to have a war hero for a husband!” Cornwallis boomed, clearly misreading Laurens’s expression.

“I’ll only be a war hero if we rout the Continentals!” Something of Cornwallis’s cheer was infectious; perhaps the surety of their victory, the knowledge that soon they will take back the colonies for the Crown.

—⚔—

The battle was turning out just as planned. André’s General had ordered a retreat of his men, and Clinton was leading the charge against them. Laurens’s men were engaged in battle with la Fayette’s men when he received the message that Clinton was retreating.

“Retreat? Zounds, man, why would they retreat when we are winning?”

“Sir, the Continentals have regrouped. General Washington rallied them and they are routing Clinton’s men.”

“Damnation. Very well then, we’ll cover their retreat.” He aimed his gun, the familiar thrill of bloodlust coursing through his veins as he took aim at their marquis. If he recognised the uniform, a Major-General.

La Fayette noticed him, his face transforming into shock. His sword faltered as he saw Laurens there, and he half-reached with his left arm towards Laurens.

Laurens fired. His aim was true, even through the chaos of battle. La Fayette fell.

For a moment, he had the strangest sensation—that the battle was supposed to have gone differently, that he wasn’t supposed to have shot la Fayette, that he had shot his friend—and then the moment passed, quick as it had come. The French marquis was his enemy, the enemy of the Crown; not his friend nor his ally.

The rest of the day was a blur of bloodlust. He picked off as many Continentals as he could, running them through with his sabre left and right, shooting and bayonetting them until night fell. By the light of the moon, they retreated and continued north to New York, abandoning the courthouse and the traitors with it.

And if Laurens thought anything of the Marquis de la Fayette, felt anything at his death, it was assuredly satisfaction and triumph, pride and even joy.

—⚔—

Lafayette was unimaginably, impossibly, inarguably dead. He had been shot through the heart during the battle, dead before he hit the ground.

Alexander Hamilton was left alone to pace a hole through the floor of the tent. Bad enough that Laurens had gone missing that morning, bad enough that Lee’s incompetence had nearly cost them the battle, but now Lafayette was dead.

Hamilton still remembered the face of the redcoat that had shot Fayette. How could he forget? Riding with nothing but pride in his red coat and golden epaulets was John Laurens. The uniform of a British Colonel–! The thought came with all the sulfurous pain of a hurricane, that Laurens, his dear, affectionate Laurens, was a traitor.

He would have to write to Fayette’s wife, Adrienne, and he knew Washington already knew about both Lafayette and Laurens. The General would write to the elder Laurens and tell him of his son’s betrayal. For all his skill and eloquence Hamilton could not imagine how he would write that letter.

The British were retreating, continuing up to New York, Laurens with them.

 _To Marie Adrienne Françoise de Noailles, Marquise de la Fayette;_ he began, but could scarcely continue. Only the practice of writing hundreds of such letters kept the quill moving. _It is my sincere misfortune to write that your husband, Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, has fallen in battle. The Marquis was a friend of mine; I found him a courageous man, a fearsome soldier, and a loyal friend._

He could not tell her that it was Laurens who fired the bullet, that they had all been betrayed. To put it in ink on paper would be to make it real. He could not tell her that Lafayette had reached for Laurens and been shot through the neck for his troubles.

“Hamilton.”

“Sir!” Hamilton stood and saluted sharply at the sound of the General’s voice; a soldier’s instinct and a relief from the writing of so painful a letter.

“At ease, son. We have captured Laurens. If you wish, you may speak to him, though I will warn you he is not in his right mind.”

“Not in his right mind? What do you mean, sir?”

“He maintains that he has never fought beside us. In all other matters—that his father is Henry Laurens, that he is from South Carolina—he has no confusion, but he believes that his father is a loyalist and that he was never in the Continental Army. Given your…closeness…to him, I hold out hope that he will recognize you, and that we may have some answers regarding his betrayal.” Hamilton nodded, saluted again, and made for the door, but he was stopped by the General’s hand on his shoulder. “Do not mistake my intention, Hamilton,” he said, “You are not under orders regarding him. This is your choice; but if you choose to visit him, he is in the basement of the courthouse.”

“Yes sir, I understand.” Hamilton saluted again, turned on his heel and all but ran for the door of the tent.

The night brought with it some relief from the oppressive, sweltering heat that so characterized the day, but Hamilton took no notice of it as he wrenched open the door of the courthouse and flew down the steps into the basement. He nodded sharply at the guards posted by the door and then saw Laurens.

He had been stripped of his coat, hat, and vest, his hair disheveled and hanging in his face. Laurens’s arms were tied above his head with rough rope, his head hanging down with his chin to his chest. Fresh bruises marred the skin Hamilton could see, and he knew there were more waiting beneath his shirt. Doubtless the men had been rough with him as they brought him in, and Hamilton itched to soothe away the pain.

“Oh, _Laurens_ ,” he said, and Laurens looked up sharply.

“How do you know my name?” he demanded. “Who are you? Who sent you?” He tried to rise up from his kneeling position, but was caught by the shackle around his ankle. He stumbled, and Hamilton, by instinct, caught him.

“Do not touch me, rebel _scum_ ,” Laurens spat out, jerking himself away from Hamilton. “Again I ask you: who are you?”

“You know me, my Laurens, my name is Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton. His Excellency asked me to talk to you, he said you were not in your right mind—”

“I am very much in my right mind, I am Colonel John Laurens of His Majesty’s Army. As I told _His Excellency,_ ” the title was a sneer, a taunt, almost sarcastic, “I have never been a Continental, and I have never seen _you_ before in my life.”

Hamilton reeled. To hear it second-hand was one thing; to hear it from Laurens, see his mouth move and voice speak impossible words, was another thing entirely.

Had the heat addled his Laurens? No, this transformation was beyond the capacity of mere temperature, no matter how stifling and oppressive. This was a complete reversal of all he knew to be true of Laurens. Could such a thing be contagious? Could Hamilton wake up one morning to find himself a Loyalist? Wake up in a British camp, put on a red coat with no sense of contradiction, and ride out to battle against his friends—but they would not be his friends. They might recognize him as their friend, as Fayette had Laurens, but he would not recognize them.

Under such a wicked influence he might shoot General Washington, and feel…joy, at the death of an (if not the) enemy commander; satisfaction, certainly, and perhaps even pride.

Was that what Laurens had felt when he shot Fayette? Or did he, even for a moment, recognize his close friend, through the enchantment? For surely Laurens was bewitched—what but an unholy magic could reverse his mind and make foes seem to be friends and friends to be foes?

The only other option was that Laurens was truly mad, though that clearly could not be true. Laurens did not seem to be addled, nor dreaming, he spoke clearly and surely. He bore no sign of any head injury, no indication of over-tiredness or hunger.

“Laurens, what foul enchantment compels you to turn against your friends?” he asked, with no hope of a helpful answer.

“My friends must be friends of the Crown that I have pledged my loyalty to; you are no friend of the Crown and therefore no friend of mine.”

“We were, once, do you not remember? We drank together, and toasted to freedom.”

“We were never. I have not been on colonial soil for many years. I was schooled in Geneva and married in London and did not return to the colonies until after I had my commission. I reiterate, I have no knowledge of you, of the friendship you profess to recall, and most certainly not of being a traitorous rebel, who claims that independence of the Crown is freedom whilst oppressing and degrading his fellow man in bonds of servitude and slavery.”

Hamilton gripped Laurens’s shoulders tightly. “Let me impress upon you, with the most open candor—”

Laurens jerked back, away from Hamilton’s embrace, snarling out “Unhand me at once, you damnable—”

His shirt tore, a startlingly loud rip that revealed the skin of Laurens’s shoulder, unmarred by scarring or wounds. Hamilton stumbled back, away from Laurens, and fled, for it was his right shoulder that had been revealed, and it had been in his right shoulder that he had been shot whilst fighting by Hamilton’s side. The memory was clear in his mind’s eye; Laurens stumbling as the ball broke skin, blood dripping down his arm as he moved his saber to his left hand and continued fighting, just as vicious with his left arm as he had been with his right. Hamilton had stayed by Laurens’s side throughout his recovery and convalescence, had ran reverent fingers over the puckered skin, planting kisses around it. He knew full well how it had scarred.

So why did Laurens lack this scar? Surely no power on this Earth could erase such a scar. A scar may fade with age and time, but it had not been nearly enough time since the wound to erase any scar, and a scar so large as that would never fade, not completely, not in a single lifetime.

Overnight, Laurens managed to erase a scar, acquire the uniform of a British Colonel, change loyalties completely and utterly—all in a single night.

Faced with the impossible, Hamilton did what any man would do: ran.

—⚔—

The idea occurred to him, in the harsh cynicism that characterized his thoughts, that perhaps this was the real Laurens. It turned his stomach but he pressed on, regardless. No man could know another in entirety. Perhaps Laurens—the Laurens that he knew, that he loved—perhaps that Laurens was a farce, a façade for the true Laurens: a high-ranking officer of Britain’s army. He was, therefore, a spy. He joined as an aide-de-camp: the better to steal documents. He was a volunteer, accepting no pay, like Hamilton: he felt some guilt, perhaps, or he knew it would amount to nothing, since if he achieved his goal there would be no payments from a government that didn’t exist. Now he had turned traitor: or rather, now he showed his hand.

A King’s man. How many nights had they shared together, how close had their souls been knit? How had he failed to see signs? Surely there had been a few. Yet he could not think of even one moment that could have hinted at Laurens’s true nature. Laurens had been the best of them, devoted to the cause to the point of recklessness. Desperate for a glorious death, desiring battle wounds and scars to show for his bravery. It worried Hamilton, sometimes, his drive to martyrdom—but then, Hamilton himself was the very same.

Laurens’s pack was still on his cot. The familiar uniform, folded neatly, the papers in a disorganized shuffle. Hamilton sorted through them, finding exactly what he would have expected from _his_ Laurens, the Laurens he had known before the day’s battle. A letter to his father, half-finished, a draft of a letter for the General. His sword—but it was unstained, clean—he remembered sitting across from Laurens, writing a letter while Laurens polished his sword. _Preparing it for redcoat blood_ , he had said. Now Laurens was a redcoat and his sword was still here, still sheathed, and clean.

The lack of a scar. The denial of facts—Laurens was unmarried, he knew, and his lack of recognition at Hamilton’s face was genuine confusion mixed with anger—and now the sword.  
He took the sword, returned it to its scabbard, and ran for the General.

“Sir!” he said, snapping a salute. “When Laurens was captured, did he have his sword on him and if so where is it?”

“He had his sword but it was confiscated, it’s in the courthouse. Why do you ask?”

“Because I don’t think the man in the basement of the courthouse is Laurens.” He ran past the General, past the confused questions, and found the redcoat’s sword. It was a different sword.  
No—the same sword. It seemed to waver in the lamplight, confusing Hamilton, but it was the same sword—or a different version of the same sword. There were nicks and scratches along the blade of the redcoat Laurens’s sword, from use in battle, where their Laurens’s sword was unmarred, but otherwise it was a match.

The same sword, but different. How had such a thing come to be? Was it some copy, twisted to a parody of Laurens? Sent to mock them—but who would have such power?

The General entered the room then. “Hamilton, I hope you have an explanation for your little theory.”

“I do. Sir, please examine these swords. Would you say they are the same?”

Washington paused and inspected the blades, the guards. “I would, yes. Aside from the scratches and nicks on the one, they are identical.”

“I suspect something similar is true of Laurens. The Laurens we are holding in our basement is not the Laurens we know.”

“So then where is our Laurens?”

“I suspect in the same place _this_ Laurens came from. Through some force beyond our knowledge or understanding, they switched places. In our basement is…” he paused for a moment to search for the right word. “Sosia,” he decided. “He is a Sosia of Laurens; the true Laurens is held hostage somewhere, no doubt—I suspect the British camp.”

Washington’s expression betrayed nothing of what he was thinking. “And what evidence do you have of this?”

“Sir, I have shared a tent with Laurens for some time. I know his face and how to read his mood. When I told him my name, he responded with genuine confusion. He was not faking, and I know, I know, Laurens could well be a traitor—though I do doubt it and not just because of our friendship. Do you remember when Laurens was shot? Through the right shoulder—did you see the scar, afterwards? It was large and puckered. When I spoke to the Laurens we now hold in our basement, I saw his shoulder, and it was free of any scarring. Furthermore, he left his sword. None of his clothes were disturbed, nor any missing. It was as though he had vanished from this world entirely. If I am correct, then our Laurens is held hostage in the British camp, having fought by our side when they expected him to be the one we hold now.”

“You do not think…”

“We must act, and act fast, or I fear our Laurens may be bound for the gallows.”

**Author's Note:**

> If I said I was sorry, would any of you believe it?
> 
> (I swear I'm working on chapter 5 of _with no one to make them afraid._ It's going to happen. On the other hand, writer's block is awful and I hate it.)


End file.
